How about doing all of those... but setting it up so that coins in the BitCoin chain must be publicly destroyed before creating the same amount of coins in these others. This will eliminate any problems with inflation and increase acceptance of these alternatives. If successful, then perhaps BitCoin could have the same mechanism of accepting coins from these other types... so long as these other coins are publicly destroyed before moving them back into the BitCoin system.

Entropy in human behavior and software development cycles would play havoc with trying to have them destroyed.

An abundance of variants would cause inflation to crash in bitcoin making all of them stronger due to the competition.

The destination key could be the hash of some block within the last 24 hours. That would be good proof that the BitCoins are destroyed in the BitCoin chain. The chance that someone has a private key of a block hash is near zero... and good proof of their destruction.

I would rather see an attempt at compatibility, rather than a lot of competing electronic currencies.

EDIT: If the main block chain can see the number of coins being destroyed/sent to an alternative system, then the alternative system has a reference to verify that there is no inflation.

Bitcoin behavior is having no effect on gold. Creation of variants even through the same software are naturally separate. There would be no inflation except within a currency. Think of cross currency trades like gears pushing each other. Instead of a trade you have a turn of the gear and people exchanging seats on the gears.

Destroying gains you nothing. The percentages are the same whether you have 50 of A and B or 100 of each.

Two merry-go-rounds if you prefer that metaphor.

As for compatibility, I proposed a 4 tier system arrangement which allows variants, bitcoin, and bitcoin sister currencies to play nicely through a basket currency.

How about doing all of those... but setting it up so that coins in the BitCoin chain must be publicly destroyed before creating the same amount of coins in these others. This will eliminate any problems with inflation and increase acceptance of these alternatives. If successful, then perhaps BitCoin could have the same mechanism of accepting coins from these other types... so long as these other coins are publicly destroyed before moving them back into the BitCoin system.

Entropy in human behavior and software development cycles would play havoc with trying to have them destroyed.

An abundance of variants would cause inflation to crash in bitcoin making all of them stronger due to the competition.

The destination key could be the hash of some block within the last 24 hours. That would be good proof that the BitCoins are destroyed in the BitCoin chain. The chance that someone has a private key of a block hash is near zero... and good proof of their destruction.

I would rather see an attempt at compatibility, rather than a lot of competing electronic currencies.

EDIT: If the main block chain can see the number of coins being destroyed/sent to an alternative system, then the alternative system has a reference to verify that there is no inflation.

Bitcoin behavior is having no effect on gold. Creation of variants even through the same software are naturally separate. There would be no inflation except within a currency. Think of cross currency trades like gears pushing each other. Instead of a trade you have a turn of the gear and people exchanging seats on the gears.

Destroying gains you nothing. The percentages are the same whether you have 50 of A and B or 100 of each.

Two merry-go-rounds if you prefer that metaphor.

As for compatibility, I proposed a 4 tier system arrangement which allows variants, bitcoin, and bitcoin sister currencies to play nicely through a basket currency.

I'm starting that Monday.

Without an agreement upon the number of coins in the system, these projects only serve to dilute the efficacy of BitCoins by confusion for the end users. I strongly oppose this, as it just servers to divide (and conquer?) the BitCoin project.

How about doing all of those... but setting it up so that coins in the BitCoin chain must be publicly destroyed before creating the same amount of coins in these others. This will eliminate any problems with inflation and increase acceptance of these alternatives. If successful, then perhaps BitCoin could have the same mechanism of accepting coins from these other types... so long as these other coins are publicly destroyed before moving them back into the BitCoin system.

Entropy in human behavior and software development cycles would play havoc with trying to have them destroyed.

An abundance of variants would cause inflation to crash in bitcoin making all of them stronger due to the competition.

The destination key could be the hash of some block within the last 24 hours. That would be good proof that the BitCoins are destroyed in the BitCoin chain. The chance that someone has a private key of a block hash is near zero... and good proof of their destruction.

I would rather see an attempt at compatibility, rather than a lot of competing electronic currencies.

EDIT: If the main block chain can see the number of coins being destroyed/sent to an alternative system, then the alternative system has a reference to verify that there is no inflation.

Bitcoin behavior is having no effect on gold. Creation of variants even through the same software are naturally separate. There would be no inflation except within a currency. Think of cross currency trades like gears pushing each other. Instead of a trade you have a turn of the gear and people exchanging seats on the gears.

Destroying gains you nothing. The percentages are the same whether you have 50 of A and B or 100 of each.

Two merry-go-rounds if you prefer that metaphor.

As for compatibility, I proposed a 4 tier system arrangement which allows variants, bitcoin, and bitcoin sister currencies to play nicely through a basket currency.

I'm starting that Monday.

Without an agreement upon the number of coins in the system, these projects only serve to dilute the efficacy of BitCoins by confusion for the end users. I strongly oppose this, as it just servers to divide (and conquer?) the BitCoin project.

They are separate systems so again the existence of similar systems has no bearing on the value of bitcoin itself. It reinforces the most common use of bitcoin: storage of value. So bitcoin is unaffected and with a tier of specialized fundamentals (storage space, bandwidth, cpu sharing) plus a basket currency on top of it, bitcoin is shielded from their dynamics. Then the 4th tier is all these currencies and they will most of the time be traded for the basket currency.

Similar currencies do not divide bitcoin. They allow people to use the one similar currency that they understand most. Eventually they will learn the dynamics and choose bitcoin as being the one with the least amount of insanity which will be great for all the currencies.

See a lot of people like to solve problems with more systems rather than more knowledge and participation.

All this is very interesting. Like a try to produce a remake of the Babel Tower story in the free software community. I have only one shovel so I will keep mining bitcoins and reading about the other mines.

Timecoin might be a future spotlight, especially when the difficulty rise further and per block reward cut in 2013

Timecoin also rewards miners (proportionally) less and less over time. Maybe you prefer expocoin or freicoin (with fixed monetary base) for the purpose you talk about.

Maybe expocoin is good, I believe 3-5% increase in money supply is required if the currency ever will be used in mass scale

Currently IXcoin took part of the hash power from bitcoin miners, but that is more towards the deflation end of the spectrum and I'm not very convinced it will succeed, hopefully some expocoin fork will provide wider selection later

All this is very interesting. Like a try to produce a remake of the Babel Tower story in the free software community. I have only one shovel so I will keep mining bitcoins and reading about the other mines.

When namecoin merged mining starts you can mine two coins with the same shovel.

Timecoin might be a future spotlight, especially when the difficulty rise further and per block reward cut in 2013

Timecoin also rewards miners (proportionally) less and less over time. Maybe you prefer expocoin or freicoin (with fixed monetary base) for the purpose you talk about.

Maybe expocoin is good, I believe 3-5% increase in money supply is required if the currency ever will be used in mass scale

Currently IXcoin took part of the hash power from bitcoin miners, but that is more towards the deflation end of the spectrum and I'm not very convinced it will succeed, hopefully some expocoin fork will provide wider selection later

Don't you prefer freicoin over expocoin?It also reduces interest rates and takes care of lost wallets.

All this is very interesting. Like a try to produce a remake of the Babel Tower story in the free software community. I have only one shovel so I will keep mining bitcoins and reading about the other mines.

When namecoin merged mining starts you can mine two coins with the same shovel.

If merged mining becomes popular, wouldn't that give Bitcoin a non-monetary use (lack of which is one complaint I've heard)? Bitcoin would then become the root of all block chains, except for those which do not incorporate merged mining (I can't see why any new block chain wouldn't).

All this is very interesting. Like a try to produce a remake of the Babel Tower story in the free software community. I have only one shovel so I will keep mining bitcoins and reading about the other mines.

When namecoin merged mining starts you can mine two coins with the same shovel.

If merged mining becomes popular, wouldn't that give Bitcoin a non-monetary use (lack of which is one complaint I've heard)? Bitcoin would then become the root of all block chains, except for those which do not incorporate merged mining (I can't see why any new block chain wouldn't).

I can't see why any new chain wouldn't have merged mining neither. The effect for the bitcoin network is that their miners would be rewarded more. It could even solve the "mining profitability after all bitcoins are generated" problem, if it is really a tragedy of the commons case.I haven't heard anyone complaining against merged mining, it just makes the different chains cooperate for mining power instead of competing for it.

If the chains aren't competing for hashing power, they are competing for adopters and users.something called the "network effect" makes the assumption that the sum of the parts is worth more than the whole somewhat questionnable.

Beckstrom's law is interesting but I like the simplicity of that one: let's say, for argument's sake, that the utility of a network is proportionnal to the square of n, n being the number of users.if N = n1 + n2then N2 > n12 + n22 , right ?

If the chains aren't competing for hashing power, they are competing for adopters and users.something called the "network effect" makes the assumption that the sum of the parts is worth more than the whole somewhat questionnable.

Beckstrom's law is interesting but I like the simplicity of that one: let's say, for argument's sake, that the utility of a network is proportionnal to the square of n, n being the number of users.if N = n1 + n2then N2 > n12 + n22 , right ?

Don't you prefer freicoin over expocoin?It also reduces interest rates and takes care of lost wallets.

I don't know much about freicoin, but I don't really believe fixed monetary base because that will limit the economy expansion, and deflation tendency will encourage hoarding of the currency. To avoid the demurrage, people can simply transfer money between their own accounts once a day

Don't you prefer freicoin over expocoin?It also reduces interest rates and takes care of lost wallets.

I don't know much about freicoin, but I don't really believe fixed monetary base because that will limit the economy expansion, and deflation tendency will encourage hoarding of the currency. To avoid the demurrage, people can simply transfer money between their own accounts once a day

Demurrage discourages hoarding even with deflation. At least if the demurrage rate is greater than the price deflation rate.The demurrage is charged for each block, not for each day and people can't avoid it within freicoin, no matter if they send payments to theirselves.